Coffee and tea have long been brewed into beverages outside of the cups or mugs from which they are drunk. Brewing these beverages outside of a cup or a mug involves procedures and equipment with which the present invention is not concerned.
When brewing within a single cup or the like, there are two well established procedures, both beginning with filling the cup with water preheated close to the boiling point. One procedure is to drop into the water a bag containing the desired amount of prepared tea leaves or ground roasted coffee beans. Conventional tea bags are porous enough to let the water pass in and out during brewing, but are restrictive enough to hold back the solid contents. This works quickly and well for tea leaves, but not as well for ground coffee beans, which tend to form a self-plugging, soggy mass in a bag. Also, tea bags have a long shelf life, whereas coffee ready for brewing has to be specially packed and sealed to prevent spoilage. The alternative procedure is to extract and crystalize the soluble content of the tea or coffee, so that the resultant dry powder can be easily measured and dropped into a cup of hot water, where it readily dissolves. This alternative is convenient and popular, but some degree of aroma and flavor is lost in the process.
These considerations suggest that tea in tea bags would remain more popular than powdered tea, and that seems to be the case. Powdered coffee, on the other hand, is in large scale use for making one serving of coffee at a time, while coffee in bags like tea bags is little used, although offered on the market. Accordingly, there has been a long felt and unsatisfied need for improved packaging for purposes of combining the benefits of the full aroma and flavor of roast and ground coffee beans with the convenience of individual immersible packets for single serving use.
Prior art reviewed in this connection included particularly U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,075,210 (Heyl et al.), 2,716,607 (Waline) and 4,465,697 (Brice et al.), and also 1,555,515 (Peal), 1,759,166 (Medin), 2,192,605 (Salfisberg), 2,328,018 (Irmscher), 3,352,226 (Nelsen), 3,387,978 (Major), 3,542,561 (Rambold), 3,607,302 (Beck), 3,833,740 (Schmidt) and 4,141,997 (Syroka et al.), and the patents cited in the parent application Ser. No. 06/752,357 filed July 5, 1985.